The Republican National Convention wasn’t the only circus in town.
Outside Public Hall June 9, before the convention began, GOP notables found four live elephants. The party symbols came from Atlantic City, New Jersey, as part of a vaudeville act managed by John F. Royal at B.F. Keith’s Palace Theatre.
Then, on June 14, 35-year-old Roxie bolted. The elephant ambled down Euclid Avenue toward Public Square without a trainer. Police stationed at the manually operated traffic signals gave the animal the right of way. At East 14th Street, a patrolman let the animal barrel through. “She went by here like a streak, and she can keep going for all I care,” he told The Plain Dealer. The same thing occurred at East 12th Street. “[Roxie] wasn’t exceeding 25 miles per hour, and I wouldn’t bother anybody that observed the law,” the East 12th Street officer joked to the paper.
Roxie made it to East Ninth Street. Then — horror of horrors — the elephant made a prohibited right turn toward Lake Erie. But before Roxie reached Superior Avenue, a trainer caught up in a taxi and reined in the wayward pachyderm. “Royal was amazed to hear that Roxie had broken traffic laws,” reported The Plain Dealer. “Down at Atlantic City last year she operated a traffic semaphore, and she knows all that stuff,” Royal said.
